A federal judge in April spared David Petraeus from serving time behind bars.
But now, newly unsealed documents demonstrate a concerted lobbying effort by friends and former colleagues of the former CIA director to get Judge David C. Keesler to go easy on Petraeus.
One of Petraeus’ pitchmen was current South Carolina senator and Republican presidential hopeful Lindsey Graham.
In a two-page, single-spaced typed dispatch addressed to Keesler, Graham pleaded for the court to “consider a sentence without confinement” for the onetime commander of all U.S. forces in Iraq and then Afghanistan. Graham is a longtime member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina made Graham’s letter, along with a slew of others penned on Petraeus’ behalf, public late Monday.
In March, Petraeus pleaded guilty to removing and retaining classified information — it was information he leaked to biographer and undercover lover Paula Broadwell.
He then lied to FBI investigators about ferrying secret documents — so-called black books containing sensitive information from his time commanding ISAF in Afghanistan — to Broadwell, according to court documents.
Keesler ultimately sentenced Petraeus to two years on probation and ordered him to pay a $100,000 fine, a result for which Graham and other powerful Beltway figures strongly petitioned.
34 high-profile figures go to bat for Petraeus
All told, 34 high-profile figures filed letters with the North Carolina district court.
Though the list reads like a veritable who’s who of national security operators from the past two decades — including former White House advisers, generals, admirals, professors, senators and a former prime minister — Graham’s nascent presidential bid centering on his hawkish reputation arguably makes his name the most relevant.
While Graham began his letter acknowledging Petraeus’ wrongdoing, he openly asks the judge account for “the facts of who [Petraeus] is and not just those of his misdeeds.”
Graham wrote of his decade of service alongside Petraeus in broad, translucent brushstrokes.
A fervent defense of a career
The senator sketches Petraeus as singularly devoted to his men, someone whose mere presence propped up U.S. troops during some of the extreme low points in two wars in faraway places.
“It always helps the soldier who is in harm’s way that the commander has their back and best interest above all else,” Graham wrote.
Graham assigned Petraeus a Hemingwayesque grace under pressure that partly explains why many believed the general could cap his military career with a bid at the Oval Office.
“The stress of being responsible for thousands of American lives, counseling foreign governments that are trying to become democracies, keeping a difficult Congress informed, and being a key advisor to the commander-in-chief were tasks that General Petraeus performed beautifully,” Graham added.
Graham ends his letter with “I am very honored to have written it on behalf of my friend, General David Petraeus.”
When asked about his decision to petition the court on behalf of Petraeus, a spokesman for the Graham campaign said the senator stands by the letter.